Dude this has awesome written all over it! I'll give this a shot next game.

I love the freeform design of this game, but having to stifle the reality factor regarding some of the ships I can build sort of takes the wind out of my sails so this mod is something I am happy to see.

Dude this has awesome written all over it! I'll give this a shot next game.

Thanks! I hope you'll like it.

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I love the freeform design of this game, but having to stifle the reality factor regarding some of the ships I can build sort of takes the wind out of my sails so this mod is something I am happy to see.

Well, technically you *can* still build those massive ships later on, but I think it's okay for the game to mostly limit the player to more reasonable sizes early on. Seeing as how Star Rulers pace slows down as the game evolves (remnants and pirates that slow down your expansion, etc.), imposing at least some kind of structural limitation on most hull types fits quite nicely IMHO.Of course I love those ridiculous "that-is-no-moon"-sized ships as much as the next guy, so there are new technologies that still enable you to build them. The relatively high cost and research requirements make them actually feel more 'special' than before, which is a plus.

That, and it's just so much fun to explore the possibilities in breaki-, erm, expanding the game!

So how does a moron like me actually use this? I love the pdf file, but I don't see any instructions for where any of this goes. I tried putting it into the mod folder but in game I see nothing new (your mods) nor do I see it as an option for new game. Can you tell me where this stuff goes, I know my way around my PC etc, but I've never modded this game and I don't see any instructions anywhere on the site that tells you this step by step.

Thanks. Oh, and this is why I don't mod games myself, I can never figure this stuff out myself.

So how does a moron like me actually use this? I love the pdf file, but I don't see any instructions for where any of this goes. I tried putting it into the mod folder but in game I see nothing new (your mods) nor do I see it as an option for new game. Can you tell me where this stuff goes, I know my way around my PC etc, but I've never modded this game and I don't see any instructions anywhere on the site that tells you this step by step.

No problem!There should be a folder in the .zip file, called "GalacticArmory". Just copy that folder into the mods folder of Star Ruler (e.g. c:\games\star ruler\mods\). When you start a new game, you can select the mod at the top of the new game window. If haven't installed any mods before, there should be: Standard Game (pre-selected), Legacy 1.0.1.2, Legacy 1.0.1.4 (those are for loading older SR savegames), Tutorial and Galactic Armory 1.0.0. You can then change the other options according to your needs just like you are used to from vanilla SR.

When you're loading a file that was saved using the mod, you'll need to click on Mods/ and then Galactic Armory 1.0.0. in the load game window to find the mod savegames. Creating a separate savegame folder for each mod was a great decision by the devs.

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Thanks. Oh, and this is why I don't mod games myself, I can never figure this stuff out myself.

Ah, don't be so harsh on yourself. Most stuff like that can be learned easily through experience, reading through stuff (especially these forums) and persistence. I like to think of it this way: If I can learn it, so can everyone else!

Looks promising, tho when i gave it a try, it suddenly crashed around half an hour into gameplay, just when i was designing a ship... Ofc the game did 0 autosaves (while its set to autosave every 10 mins) yay...

Oh well, right after the game crash, my steam suddenly started patching the game to 1.0.2.2. (was 1.0.1.8. previously) (zOMG orbiting stations f0r d4 w1n!!!!), so i'm gonna give it a go tomorrow as well.

I've noticed some intresting and good changes already, tho i didn't play enough to be able to have a real opinion... yet

Hey umm, wondering if you're planning to add new defense systems (as some new type of shields) as well, not only tools for poof-poof?

I put the whole folder into the mod folder for me being c:/program files/star ruler/mods. So the Gal Armory folder sits in there and it has several folders of its own which I haven't touched. On loading Star Ruler nothing shows except the standard stuff as you described. Odd thing there is a blank spot between the legacy options and the tutorial...I selected that and tried a game hitting x4 and expanding quickly with no AI's but I never saw any of the new stuff you've added so must assume it didn't work either.

I have also tried putting the Gal Armory folder into the user files shortcut that's in the Star Ruler directory as well but that didn't work either. Not sure what I am doing wrong at this point

**EDIT

Ok, got it to work. As I said before I'm an idiot.

I was putting it too deep dropping it into the mod/mod folder itself...which begs the question what goes in there?! Anyways, I put it in the mod folder one step up and it shows up now. On to testing it out.

Looks promising, tho when i gave it a try, it suddenly crashed around half an hour into gameplay, just when i was designing a ship... Ofc the game did 0 autosaves (while its set to autosave every 10 mins) yay...

Oh well, right after the game crash, my steam suddenly started patching the game to 1.0.2.2. (was 1.0.1.8. previously) (zOMG orbiting stations f0r d4 w1n!!!!), so i'm gonna give it a go tomorrow as well.

I've noticed some intresting and good changes already, tho i didn't play enough to be able to have a real opinion... yet

Hey umm, wondering if you're planning to add new defense systems (as some new type of shields) as well, not only tools for poof-poof?

Well an old skool armory has swords and shields...so I am hoping hell yeah.

Looks promising, tho when i gave it a try, it suddenly crashed around half an hour into gameplay, just when i was designing a ship... Ofc the game did 0 autosaves (while its set to autosave every 10 mins) yay...

Hm, the crash was probably because of your game version. The mod is for 1.0.2.2 (although it should still work with 1.0.2.0 as well). The good thing is that the latest versions do, in fact, crash A LOT less than before.

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Hey umm, wondering if you're planning to add new defense systems (as some new type of shields) as well, not only tools for poof-poof?

I've been thinking about this myself. Well, I like diversity, so I could at least imagine some additional form of armor, but as of now I couldn't really come up with something new and interesting. The new weapons, on the other hand, are supposed to fill a specific niche each.A new type of shield, huh? Not too sure about that yet, but when the devs (hopefully?) include special shield-depleting weapons and effects, I could see things become more interesting.

I was putting it too deep dropping it into the mod/mod folder itself...which begs the question what goes in there?! Anyways, I put it in the mod folder one step up and it shows up now. On to testing it out.

Awww, when I finally put together an MS Paint quality picture explaining how it should look...Nah, just kidding! I'm glad it's now working for you.

Well an old skool armory has swords and shields...so I am hoping hell yeah.

Heh, that's true. Well, if someone could come up with interesting ideas for different kinds of armor (that would *really* serve a different purpose than the armors we alreadsy have in Star Ruler), I would definately look into the mechanics.

Yeah the crash could either have been because of my game version, or because of steam being dumb enough to start patching a game which is currently running... Anyways, how do you make a mod for ver. 1.0.2.2. if (by the news on this site) the official newest version is still 1.0.1.8. ? I'm even wondering that my steam suddenly updated my version to .2.2. ...

As for armors, there are plenty in the game and i cant come up with much more ideas, but shields... Well, if it's possible you could make us be able to set up dual layer shields (multiple generators with standalone hp and other attributes, one being projected a bit further away from the ship than the other, so the other only starts taking damage when this is down -- although currently i don't really know what use it could have except having a fun ship designing),or passive shields (which have no HP and are never depleted (as long as the ships power systems are intact), but is always bleeding trough, sustaining only a percent of the damage),or you could try to implement (well this could be hard...) shields seen in an old space combat simulator named Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos (i don't know how to name those shields, but their base idea was, that when they absorbed damage, they could absorb unlimited amounts of it, but the shield could only be projected a few times in a while... So the shield wasn't constant, it was more like a couple of temporary projected force fields, distinctly concentrating on each incoming projectile. So you could have like 3 shield charges / 5 sec, and if your foe shot at you with a very strong but _slow_ firing weapon, it sucked up most of the damage, but against rapid fire weapons it had very limited capabilityes...),also i don't know if current weapons in the game do always just hit a target ship, or in case of shields, they actually contact and hit the surface of the shield itself... In this latter case, you could make Fortress Shields like we could see in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (the shield is very strong and is projected far away from the object generating it, to cover a big area of space and allow your other ships to hide inside the bubble as well... - although this could also bring up another problem: weapon ranges are generally too short for this kind of warfare... ohh, yeah and the fortress shield was also impassable for hostile ships...),or, maybe you could make something like if the player connects a shield generator and a stealth field generator to each-other, then instead of having a shield and a percentage miss chance, the ship gains the ability to shift out of phase for relatively short periods of time, being able to move and perform repairs meanwhile, but also being invulnerable (or more like untargetable) and unable to fire (as the shots would just pass trough everything).

The mod improves nicely the vanilla game and i think many things are to be implemented it worth. Thumps up.I still looking for things like the classic crowd control (root/snare and slow), HoT Nanites or "beamed" boarding party.

In any case, with the Steam version being up to speed now, everything should be fine.

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Well, if it's possible you could make us be able to set up dual layer shields (multiple generators with standalone hp and other attributes, one being projected a bit further away from the ship than the other, so the other only starts taking damage when this is down -- although currently i don't really know what use it could have except having a fun ship designing),

Interesting idea... Although I'm not sure if the benefits would outweigh the effort (if possible at all). Oh, and shields currently only absorb damage that really hits the ship itself, the barrier you see is just a nice-looking effect for now. So there's not a real barrier (yet). Constantly calculating the changing size and blocking radius of possibly thousand of shielded ships would probably slow down the game A LOT, so I'm not sure the devs plan on implementing this in a "real" way. An approximate graphical representation of this would probably suffice, anyhow.

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or passive shields (which have no HP and are never depleted (as long as the ships power systems are intact), but is always bleeding trough, sustaining only a percent of the damage),

That's interesting - although I can easily see this becoming too overpowered. It'd be like indestructible armor, making the game a turtle-fest shipwise. Probably not a good idea at the current time; we'll have to see how things develop, however.

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or you could try to implement (well this could be hard...) shields seen in an old space combat simulator named Independence War 2: Edge of Chaos (i don't know how to name those shields, but their base idea was, that when they absorbed damage, they could absorb unlimited amounts of it, but the shield could only be projected a few times in a while... So the shield wasn't constant, it was more like a couple of temporary projected force fields, distinctly concentrating on each incoming projectile. So you could have like 3 shield charges / 5 sec, and if your foe shot at you with a very strong but _slow_ firing weapon, it sucked up most of the damage, but against rapid fire weapons it had very limited capabilityes...),

Unfortunately I've never played I-War or I-War 2, but I definately like the sound of this. This advanced point-defense style is actually the way I'd imagine (more or less) believable shields for spaceships. Directing high amounts of energy in a very specific direction is a lot more energy-efficient than constantly having to keep up a barrier that's surrounding the entire ship! I'm not sure if or how this could make it's way into the game, but I'm a 100% behind this idea. (Just thinking out loudly: Maybe it could be implemented as some kind of armor. Like the reactive armor that only blocks damage once a certain damage threshhold has been surpassed. Not sure if it's possible to limit the number of blocking attempts per time, though.)

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also i don't know if current weapons in the game do always just hit a target ship, or in case of shields, they actually contact and hit the surface of the shield itself...

Like I said above, they just impact the ship itself.

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In this latter case, you could make Fortress Shields like we could see in Nexus: The Jupiter Incident (the shield is very strong and is projected far away from the object generating it, to cover a big area of space and allow your other ships to hide inside the bubble as well... - although this could also bring up another problem: weapon ranges are generally too short for this kind of warfare... ohh, yeah and the fortress shield was also impassable for hostile ships...),

Nexus was a great game. Damn, it's been years since I played that... Interesting idea, but probably not feasible due to the overall scale of space warfare in Star Ruler. Remember, in Nexus you were operating much more on a tactical than a strategic scale (especially compared to SR).

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or, maybe you could make something like if the player connects a shield generator and a stealth field generator to each-other, then instead of having a shield and a percentage miss chance, the ship gains the ability to shift out of phase for relatively short periods of time, being able to move and perform repairs meanwhile, but also being invulnerable (or more like untargetable) and unable to fire (as the shots would just pass trough everything).

Although it's very similar to the stealth field/hull we already have, I could imagine something like this could probably even make it into vanilla SR at a later point.

I just have been playing around with your mod a little, and i am very pleased how it works. the add ins are a nice touch. Nothing really over powered that i can tell yet. Still trying to see how the test of the effects are, but the huge hulls are a great add on.

Ah, thanks. I've been thinking about a nanite repair system (to give the nanotechnology research some love), but I already had to lower the repair bay's repair rate to keep things more balanced (IMHO). I'm note sure yet how I could make a nanite repair system different from that without just making it a stronger version. Mh, a "use tool" type system that repairs a load of HP at once, maybe?

I just have been playing around with your mod a little, and i am very pleased how it works. the add ins are a nice touch. Nothing really over powered that i can tell yet. Still trying to see how the test of the effects are, but the huge hulls are a great add on.

Thanks for the feedback! If you should find anything that seems severely over-/underpowered, don't hesitate to say so. Although I try to retain balance as much as possible, I had to tweak a few things shortly before release (the ion cannon damage, for example) since I noticed they were a bit overpowered.

The next version will probably see some improvement regarding propulsion technology. A mere three different techs doesn't do the possibilities justice. Although I saw some hints of more propulsion technologies in the data files that the devs didn't implement (yet)...

Ah, thanks. I've been thinking about a nanite repair system (to give the nanotechnology research some love), but I already had to lower the repair bay's repair rate to keep things more balanced (IMHO). I'm note sure yet how I could make a nanite repair system different from that without just making it a stronger version. Mh, a "use tool" type system that repairs a load of HP at once, maybe?

I think making each tech tree more interesting for gamers is a good point.

Uhmm well i think your "use tool - direct heal" is a good approach, the repair nanites sytem needs only cargo space and it uses charges as ammo and if you find a good ratio between the used charges vs. the ammount of healed damage it would be balanced.

Uhmm well i think your "use tool - direct heal" is a good approach, the repair nanites sytem needs only cargo space and it uses charges as ammo and if you find a good ratio between the used charges vs. the ammount of healed damage it would be balanced.

I'll keep that idea in mind for later. Probably won't be in that soon, but I can definately see this happening sometime in the future.

I just have to test this. Did you make big ships useful again? If so, you are my hero!

Thanks!Yes, I think so. While you do need the new hull types which are rather costly (Megastructure and Gargantuan Hull) to build ships of size 1000+, those not only provide more space and overall features (the Gargantuan Hull having a 'spinal mount' effect to boost one weapon system), the size-dependent increase in firing delay is not as colossal as it used to be. In addition to that, I introduced a cap at 10x the basic formula as well as a new subsystem (mass mount) that pretty much converts any linked weapon to a whole battery of small guns, boosting the rate of fire up to 20x (at 1.5 percent of damage, I think). To prevent this from creating super-fast firing small ships that lead to ridiculous game lag, this only gets decently efficient as the scale goes up to 1000 and more. For a first concept on how to counter the aforementioned issues present in vanilla SR, it's probably relatively well balanced.

Sooo... I've tested your mod and enjoyed it very much! One problem though: Does your mod support multiplayer? I've tried to reload a game that I've played with friends but every time it says "Object tree malformed" and goes back to the main menu.

Edit: This only happens with autosaves (all of them). Normally saved games can be resumed. Is there a bug in the games autosave function?

Sooo... I've tested your mod and enjoyed it very much! One problem though: Does your mod support multiplayer? I've tried to reload a game that I've played with friends but every time it says "Object tree malformed" and goes back to the main menu.

Okay, this is probably a stupid question, but was the MP game started using the mod as well? And did everyone have the mod?

If it was, I don't know what the problem is; but I haven't had the opportunity of testing it in multiplayer yet, so I'm not sure if there are any instabilities, though I can't think of any that would be specific to multiplayer... (scripts maybe)

I've been thinking about this myself. Well, I like diversity, so I could at least imagine some additional form of armor, but as of now I couldn't really come up with something new and interesting. The new weapons, on the other hand, are supposed to fill a specific niche each.

How about point defense? Work it like a shield, sort of. You have X amount of PD fire control. Each missile targeted by PD eats one point. Chance of blocking a missile is (current fire control/maximum fire control). Possibly have a second chance to block the missile if the first is missed, but only half the damage is blocked on the second try (stopped it too late).

You'd need to upgrade missiles if you did this. My thought was to have three separate types of missiles -- standard missiles, which are what we have now. Capital missiles, which do more damage and have, say triple the range, but you get fewer of them -- say, 1 per size, as compared to 5 per size for standard missiles, and you can't fit them on anything smaller than about a size 50 ship. And stategic bombardment missiles -- more damage even than capital missiles, more range (say, triple the range of capital missiles), but you only get one per every 10 spaces or so, and you can't fit the launcher on anything smaller than a size 100-200 ship. Have the range on all of them increased based on missile, computer, and propulsion tech. (I.E., use the average level of all three when calculating the level used for range).

You'd need a *significant* increase in the damage done by capital missiles, and especially SBMs, unless there's some way to make capital missiles and SBMs harder to block (to simulate E.G. ECM decoys being mixed in). I haven't really looked at the Phased Beam (?), but I suspect that the same method used to allow it to bypass armor could be used here.

Also how about an automated security system which protects the ship against boarding parties? It's quite annoying that ~10mins into the game you get attacked by pirates who just fun-capture your defending ships then drain your resources 'till all eternity...

Playing your mod a bit more, i have to say shields are ways too weak:

First talk a little bit about "reality"... Since around the world war, humanity can make stronger weapons than armor. No matter how heavy your tank is, not matter how many tons of metal or anything else you use to cover something in, there will be always a weapon which can easily destroy it. Now go a bit further and think about our space station, or the many satellites. Small meteorites (not even weapons, no explosive load or anything), like the size of your mobile phone can badly damage and disable them, just because of their raw speed... No armor can stop them (except for a special multi layered armor design which i can't describe in english, but that only works agains projectiles this small in size, and hell not against real weapons).

For this reason did the old gods of sci-fi come up with the idea of shields. These energy fields don't fragment, and projectile sizes are also irrelevant for them, as well as they're superior to armors in many other ways (for example if your shield is broken trough you can still try to escape, while your armor is broken trough, you have no godforsaken air to breathe)... I'm very sad that, while Nexus for example did remember these old sci-fi facts (and had ships with strong shields, but once their shields were down, it only took a few shots to destroy them), a lot of other stuff like partially this game, or let's just say battlestar galactica doesn't care about them at all...

So to get to the point, shields don't have their glory in this game. I pretty much think they SHOULD be the late-game defenses for everything that dares to leave the surface of a planet. Early-mid game could be for armors, but when things get rough, shields should be your best frends (maybe make them harder to access).

Well but currently, what do shields do? Ain't no good... Let me just put an example here:Shield, Armor, and Metallurgy technology at level 16, ship scale at 20, every subsystem module's scale at 1, just for the case of this example:

So to sum up, shields are overally weaker, heal less (wtf come on, you only need to pump power into shields and they regenerate while repairing armor is a lot more complicated, yet it goes faster?!?!), and have no damage reduction at all, so a lot of small ships can destroy a huge shielded one, but cannot even scratch an armored one... ye riiiiiiight...But the worst thing about shields is that the HP, the regeneration and the "resistance" parts all consume subsystem space, meanwhile for the armor, only the regeneration part costs you subsystem space (the hp part you can put any amount you want on your ship.. it slows the ship down thats right, but still, it's just plain silly... and if your ship is a station, even the slow-down factor is gone, and you can easily give it billions of HP), and you have a lot more free space remaining for weapons and such... (ok, armor is heavyer and requires you to use bigger engines, but not that much bigger, all this scales very badly...)Shields also draw more power, which might require you to put a stronger generator in your design, consuming further space...

If you want to have a slightly decent shield, you need a charger(4), a generator(2) and a hardener(1). That's already 7 subsystem spaces, yet these shields wont even hold against much... Not to mention, in many cases a repair bay(2), powered armor("2") defense would simply out-tank it...

Armor should not have so insane regeneration. Shield should have some damage reduction as well, maybe scaling with the hardener.Shields should use less subsystem space either by adding special shielded hulls which have additional subsystem space which can only be used for shields, or by increasing the effectiveness of the current shield modules a lot...

Yep i'm unhappy, but to be honest it's not your fault, its mostly the game devs who made it this way... I'm just pokeing modders (they're my only faith left in this game) because whatever i throw at the devs, they just keep rejecting and refusing it with some nonsense excluses...

XTRMNTRK2, i think there is a problem with your HP formula regarding the big hulls. Overall tech level was about 20 where it was possible to build a gigantic hull at scale 5... with ten times (or so) the hp of the standard hull at a marginal cost increase. The two biggest hulls should always have negative HP built < 1000.

Autocannons are cool so far, really enjoyed them.

One thing you could adress with your mod if you feel the same as i do: All ship subsystems get way too powerful way too early. I mean, at tech lvl 1 its usually enough to put an 0.25 power generator on a ship... thats so lame. Every item on a ship should consume control, except for the hull. I'd vote for a much higher energy and control cost for all items. Its just lame that nearly everything can be powered by a tiny generator and controlled by a tiny bridge. The efficiency increase each tech should be much much less. At lvl 20, you can build allmighty superships that don't need fuel, ammo or anything. And lvl 20 is not hard to reach in a 150+ systems galaxy with like 5 or 6 opponents. Don't really like this, as the whole "I need to support my fleet" stuff just... vanishes. What do you think about this?

Yes, everyone has bought the game via Steam and installed your mod. Funny thing is, the autosave from the game we've played now does load.

Okay, that's a relief. Hopefully it was 'just' the game itself misbehaving

@dstar:Those are some great ideas, and I see a lot of potential in them. Maybe even some more research fields could get some lovin'.

@Dadekster:That's one of the things I'm currently missing as well. Don't know about the implementation yet, but something to counter the stealth at least a bit is, IMHO, a must have.

@BambiBambi:Thanks a lot!As for the content, I don't want to go too much "over the top"; however, that does not mean I don't want to see some uttlery brutal and devastating weapons in this mod. It's just that they need to be expensive and time-consuming at the very least to be balanced. I also like concepts that are both clever and believable (however advanced they may be). In the end, things need to be fun.

Also how about an automated security system which protects the ship against boarding parties? It's quite annoying that ~10mins into the game you get attacked by pirates who just fun-capture your defending ships then drain your resources 'till all eternity...

I don't like having my ships boarded, either... But shouldn't crew quarters do the trick?Still, the idea isn't bad; maybe something similar especially for AI core-piloted ships.

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Playing your mod a bit more, i have to say shields are ways too weak:[...]So to get to the point, shields don't have their glory in this game. I pretty much think they SHOULD be the late-game defenses for everything that dares to leave the surface of a planet. Early-mid game could be for armors, but when things get rough, shields should be your best frends (maybe make them harder to access).

Generally, I have to agree with you. I did some tinkering with the shield HP and charge rate in settings.txt in the initial development phase. Couldn't find a good middle-ground though, so changed it to default values for the time being. Still thinking about how this can be solved without making them too powerful, either. In the end, they'll most probably be a good deal more useful than now.

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Well but currently, what do shields do? Ain't no good... Let me just put an example here:[...]

Are those numbers pulled from the mod or vanilla SR? Just asking because I'm not sure.

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So to sum up, shields are overally weaker, heal less (wtf come on, you only need to pump power into shields and they regenerate while repairing armor is a lot more complicated, yet it goes faster?!?!), and have no damage reduction at all, so a lot of small ships can destroy a huge shielded one, but cannot even scratch an armored one... ye riiiiiiight...

Absolutely agree there. The armor repair ratio is ridiculous compared to that; that's one of the reasons I decreased it. But realistically speaking, it'd have to be even A LOT less.Instead of super-fast repairing armor (it's also strange that nano armor repairs more slowly than powered armor + repair bay...) I propose to multiply armor HP and slow down the repair bay/crew quarters even more.

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But the worst thing about shields is that the HP, the regeneration and the "resistance" parts all consume subsystem space, meanwhile for the armor, only the regeneration part costs you subsystem space (the hp part you can put any amount you want on your ship.. it slows the ship down thats right, but still, it's just plain silly... and if your ship is a station, even the slow-down factor is gone, and you can easily give it billions of HP), and you have a lot more free space remaining for weapons and such... (ok, armor is heavyer and requires you to use bigger engines, but not that much bigger, all this scales very badly...)Shields also draw more power, which might require you to put a stronger generator in your design, consuming further space...

Looking at the armor entries in the data files - what's responsible for them not consuming any space? Is the the "Equips To: Armor" line?Because I'm thinking of levelling the playing field here...(Although it's more 'realistic' to have armor not to take up much or any space at all; it's easier to make the hull more bulky outwards than stuffing more complex systems inside; then again, you wouldn't have dozens or hundreds of different layers making up the surface).

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Yep i'm unhappy, but to be honest it's not your fault, its mostly the game devs who made it this way... I'm just pokeing modders (they're my only faith left in this game) because whatever i throw at the devs, they just keep rejecting and refusing it with some nonsense excluses...

I wouldn't be so harsh on the devs to be honest; they're still at this point more concerned with making the game more stable and more complex. That's something that only they can do.The overall balance can be altered easily, however. So, in a way, if we as modders change and tweak the game to something we like (more than the vanilla game), we're just doing what the devs are hoping for - creating a living, evolving game.

XTRMNTRK2, i think there is a problem with your HP formula regarding the big hulls. Overall tech level was about 20 where it was possible to build a gigantic hull at scale 5... with ten times (or so) the hp of the standard hull at a marginal cost increase. The two biggest hulls should always have negative HP built < 1000.

Thanks for the hint. Technically the hulls' limits were meant to change as research evolves, but that example is, of course, too extreme.Maybe I'll replace the fixed penalty for megastructure and gargantuan hull with a better formula for the next version after 1.1.0.

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Autocannons are cool so far, really enjoyed them.

Thanks! I'm glad to hear that. No balancing or performance issues with them, I hope?

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One thing you could adress with your mod if you feel the same as i do: All ship subsystems get way too powerful way too early. I mean, at tech lvl 1 its usually enough to put an 0.25 power generator on a ship... thats so lame. Every item on a ship should consume control, except for the hull. I'd vote for a much higher energy and control cost for all items. Its just lame that nearly everything can be powered by a tiny generator and controlled by a tiny bridge. The efficiency increase each tech should be much much less. At lvl 20, you can build allmighty superships that don't need fuel, ammo or anything. And lvl 20 is not hard to reach in a 150+ systems galaxy with like 5 or 6 opponents. Don't really like this, as the whole "I need to support my fleet" stuff just... vanishes. What do you think about this?

It's easy to understand why you feel that way. There's rarely any reason to increase the size of most support/control subsystems beyond 0.5 or 1.0. Power and control demand will probably be increased, especially for more powerful subsystems.

While I do like big, self-supporting ships (as far as ammo and fuel in the lategame are concerned), I also agree that you should have a stronger feeling of needing to support your fleet. The main reason for this is IMHO currently the inefficient AI of haulers and tankers. Having dedicated support ships that actually work would make it more desirable to up the amount of ammunition and fuel that's consumed.

@Galactic Armory 1.1.0I will try and release it ASAP. Includes some tweaks to engines as well as new propulsion technology.

@all:Thanks for the support, guys. Being able to create something that others enjoy (despite my lack of any real skills! ) really makes me happy.

@Autocannons: No, as far as i can report they are a good overall addition to the game. No balancing issues noted.

@Imbalances at late game: Yes, i do like ship designs that are independent from supply, too, but not how it is implemented at SR at the moment. After an hour or so you are able to build a two engine, all energy weapon, shielded combat craft that gets all the power it needs from a tiny fusion reactor and a tiny ram scoop. Yay...

In my opinion, these ships should always be weaker armed then ships that aren't swiss army knifes. If you are technologically advanced over your enemy, then those ships could be an edge over his low-tech battleships, but on the same tech level.. no, that just doesn't feel right for me.